


Vows or Not

by Calacious



Series: Mirrors [4]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: AU, Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, mention of past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 18:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14407920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Danny's losing himself in the mirror again. Steve pulls him out of it. Steve's point of view.





	Vows or Not

**Author's Note:**

> Steve's been pushing for a point of view in this series. I decided to write it.

Steve wants to turn back time, make sure that Danny never left his side the day that he was taken. He’d known splitting up was a bad idea, but they’d both been intent on getting their perp, and it had been Danny who’d suggested that they split up, try to get around the guy. Except, when Steve had cornered their runner, Danny was gone.

Finding Danny, months later, had been bittersweet. His partner wasn’t the same, and if the doctors were to be believed, he never would be.

Amnesiac, Danny had also been skeletal thin when they’d found him, and the scars…they’d haunt Steve’s dreams for the rest of his life. That Danny couldn’t vocalize what had happened to him was an added insult. Danny not talking was unnatural.

Steve closes his eyes against the onslaught of memories that bombard his mind when he thinks back to those two days — the day he lost ,and the day he found, Danny. Remembering them won’t do a damn thing to fix anything. Going back in time, like that, won’t do Danny any good. Won’t do him any good either. Reliving his regrets won’t change the past, and Steve knows that. Still, it’s hard for him not to go there almost every single day when faced with a Danny who’s less than loquacious, and who acts nothing like the man he fell in love with. The man who doesn’t remember himself, let alone Steve and what they had together.

“Hey, Danny. Here you are. I was looking for you.” Steve keeps his voice carefully neutral because he’s learned that letting his emotions leak through will spook Danny.

Danny’s in the bathroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror. Something that’s not new since he’s gotten Danny back. He doesn’t understand it, but knows that, if he asks, Danny will shrug or shake his head, or say something that doesn’t make sense.

“How you doing?” Steve stands behind Danny, and waits for Danny to make eye contact with him through the mirror. Most of the time, it works. This time, though, Steve holds Danny’s gaze for several seconds before Danny finally blinks and returns from wherever the hell it is his mind goes when he gets like this.

Steve has an idea of where it is that Danny goes when he loses time looking in the mirror, but he knows that Danny can’t tell him. He understands now that it’s not a matter of _won’t_ on Danny’s part, but that Danny truly cannot voice what’s going through his mind or what happened to him, that he can’t remember.

It’s the not knowing that Steve hates. Medical reports are one thing (he knows that Danny was tortured, that almost all of his bones were broken, some healing poorly, and that things were done to Danny that he doesn’t want to think about), the finer details (what kind of torture, how often, when it started, when it ended), another, and Steve knows that he’ll probably never get those details. The men who’d done this to Danny are dead, and Danny can only speak in broken phrases and disconnected thoughts.

He wants to cry. Doesn’t. Instead, he turns Danny away from the mirror, and presses in close, holding Danny while he trembles.

“It’s okay,” Steve says. “I’ve got you, D.”

“Why?” Danny’s voice breaks on the one worded question.

Steve misses all of Danny’s words. He misses the Danny who used to argue with him, the Danny who’d have pushed away by now and said something to change the subject.

“Because,” Steve says, emotions rolling through him like a tsunami. He pushes them aside in favor of one. “I love you.”

Danny sobs out a laugh and shakes his head. Steve cradles Danny’s head to his chest and simply holds him, willing Danny to feel the love that he has for him. Willing Danny to believe him.

“I love you, and I’m never going to stop loving you,” Steve says, walking them out of the bathroom.

“You should,” Danny says, voice rough. “I —”

“Well, I do, love you,” Steve interrupts Danny’s train of thought before it can devolve any further. “And I’m going to keep on loving you no matter what you say.”

“Stubborn,” Danny says, practically huffing the word out. It’s a little like the old Danny, and Steve breathes in deeply, holds onto this moment because it’s a rare one. It’s worth holding onto. Worth treasuring. Like every moment he’s got with Danny, every new memory that they’re building together, good and bad, he wants to hold onto this one like it could be their last.

“Yes, I am,” Steve says. “Yes, I am.”

Danny laughs, for real this time, and finally relaxes against Steve, melting into his arms almost like no time has passed at all.

He misses the way Danny used to be, but he’s never stopped loving Danny, even when Danny was missing and everyone else thought that Danny was dead, and he can’t see himself stopping anytime soon. Maybe Danny’s right and he’s just stubborn, or maybe, as his sister Mary’s said, he and Danny are just meant to be.

“But, that doesn’t make what I feel for you any less,” Steve says.

“Words,” Danny says, and Steve knows what he means. Too many words, too much talk.

“Fine, then let me show you?”

Danny nods, and Steve ducks his head and kisses Danny. It’s different than it used to be, but Steve’s okay with that. He’s got Danny back and is prepared to stick with him in both good times and in bad, through sickness and in health, whether or not they actually say the vows that they’d talked about saying before Danny had been taken.

“Love,” Danny whispers the word against Steve’s lips.

“Love,” Steve agrees.

They don’t need any other words.


End file.
